Musculo-Skeletal Disorders (MSDs) Risk Assessment among Goldsmiths by Using RULA (Rapid Upper Limb Assessment) Method

The Gems and Jewellery sector plays a significant role in the Indian economy, contributing around 6-7 per cent of the country's GDP. It also employs over 2.5 million workers. One of the fastest growing sectors, it is extremely export oriented and labour intensive. Based on its potential for growth and value addition, the Government of India has declared the Gems and Jewellery sector as a focus area for export promotion. The Government has recently undertaken various measures to promote investments and to upgrade technology and skills to promote 'Brand India' in the international market. India is the largest player in diamond cutting and polishing and also the largest consumer of gold. A goldsmith is a metalworker who specializes in working with gold and other precious metals. Their work only seen as a cost, not as an investment and focused on 'menu' driven training. The work is unsystematic and marginal required high skill but pays very less to the workers. Apart from that the worker perform task in a very awkward postures which gives invitation to many occupational disease. RUBA (Rapid Upper Body Assessment) is ergonomic assessment tool useful for manual task risk assessment. The purpose of the study is to find out the risk of MSDs and classify the risk in goldsmiths in Lohaghat city. To achieve the purpose 50 healthy male goldsmiths were randomly selected from Lohaghat city in Champawat district of Uttarakhand. RULA was used to assess the stress of workers for all predominant postures by scoring them according to their severity of stress. The average working postures of the goldsmiths at their working condition (cross-legged) were analyzed by the RULA method. This was carried out with the aid of digital photography. Video were recorded with artisan performing various task related to their work which was eventually subjected to analysis. The analysis revealed that the posture requires investigation and changes immediately. This indicates that the workers adopt awkward posture at their daily work process.